‘A game about yesterday’  

An Arsenal blog from a coach’s perspective

So that was the most forgettable game of the season. Easily.

I’m glad that I was on my Christmas trip to Cincinnati with Lori, spending most of our time pretending that we were 19, whilst hanging out at one of the coolest speakeasies I’ve been to. I was looking forward to the game more than Ghost Baby but Ghost Baby won easily.

I’m glad I don’t do match review rundowns as I’d have to pay you to read the blow by blow account of very little.

The coaches and the team won’t care though because I’d say they hit most of their 5 objectives.

1. Defensive shape
2. Back to no shots on target
3. Clean sheet
4. Silence the festive crowd
5. Control

It’s not that we are a defensive side. You can’t accuse Arsenal of parking the bus. Some will accuse us of a lack of ambition, We are trying to fully regain what got us in this position vs believing that we can go from being pretty bad to fluid.

The 5 things I mention will likely have been the training topics, video sessions and pre-game emphasis. 

1. Defensive shape

You can’t be the best out of possession team in Europe and let that slide to the point where the crown falls off your head and breaks on the floor. That takes the highest level of coaching and a lot of work. The session just had to be revisited and the players were reminded of their distances. Arsenal simply do not let players turn  unopposed in the final third. Wolves had a 15 minute field day and that had to change. We were certainly fortunate that Everton‘s best player was at the AFCON but Grealish can be a menace and was a complete non-factor which is a compliment to Arsenal not letting him run with the ball. I won’t be entirely surprised if Arsenal took a look at N’diaye this summer. He is playing at the wrong level.

2. Back to no shots on target

If you can successfully get number one right then number two is possible. Everton may well have had one or two shots on target, I couldn’t think of one, but all the coaching staff can do is keep the XG down. 

Then it’s down to the players and the goalkeeper and both of those groups were on it.

3. Clean Sheet

Somebody at some point was going to create a team where clean sheets were celebrated like victories. I think Arsenal and Arteta have come the closest to this. Raw emotion doesn’t lie and you can see that it’s not the ‘fear of Schmichael’ that makes defenders want to slap Raya on the back and give him a sheepish hug. The other tell tale sign is how willing the players are to get hurt. How many goals do you think are scored because somebody flinched? I’d say one out of every four goals. Now that we have super slow motion replay you can see that if the player would’ve stayed wide and broad he might’ve been one goolie down but the ball wasn’t going past him. Arsenal were the first team that I saw to defend shots by dropping one of their knees like a fielder in cricket. Very clever coaching right there.

4. Silence the festive crowd

Did you get the impression that we had been told to numb the excitable Merseysiders in their fancy new stadium on the river. They might have sent us to sleep and somewhat frustrated us that we can’t win and entertain both, but often these fixtures are lost because of the 12th man and Arteta knows better than all of us what the Everton crowd can do. 

5. Control

Again, not a thing that we are most proud of, but I think we’ve all come to accept that we are able to control emotions, control ourselves and stay with 11 players on the field, control the tempo, control what side of the pitch the game is played on and therefore control the scoreline much like your best Italian teams do.

Alongside trying to get back to ourselves, the XG, and the match highlights prove that we did plenty enough to win this game by two or three goals, and that it only became anxious because of someone unfortunate moments in front of goal.

Arsenal might just put on a show against Brighton. They might be better than Everton, but Arsenal have very cleverly returned themselves back to the solid version that bosses games of football. Absolutely not the most fun to watch but very much necessary if we are going to be the team that got us to the top in the first place. 

I look forward to the dancing elves at the Emirates against Brighton because the balance is back.

POSITIVES:

Gyokeres:

He wasn’t great. I don’t want to pretend. I do think that the full-time analysis is far too premature. The game isn’t over and we all know that most international players show great improvement in their second season. Ultimately, we knew we weren’t getting the all round footballer that we have in Kai, and he is consistently being ignored, which he was again against Everton. This image might remind you. 

Saka should’ve scored, but VG would’ve had a tap in.

Martin Odegaard found him in the kind of position where he would literally break the net in Portugal, but hit the ball far too hard for him. 

I’m happy to admit that there have been some concerning signs that I always maintain that you cannot judge a player until you’ve seen their ceiling and he’s still sitting on the floor. We require a lot from every player, from him we would be satisfied with a 20 goal of season striker. I think that that is entirely possible, if the other players include him in their automatisms and pay attention to his runs, which are frequent. In short, I think that the greater problem in this particular situation is a lack of focus on coaching to his strengths or players not yet adapting to a true striker than him consistently missing chances.

Raya:

Rating David Raya is much like living in the world of the ‘Choose your own Adventure’ books that I read as a child. The story was built by the choices of the reader.

I wonder what the story would look like if David Raya wasn’t so incredibly good at positioning and decision-making on crosses. He completely belies the myth that you have to be well over 6 foot tall to be a  commanding goalkeeper. I always thought that that was ridiculous because even a goalkeeper at 6 foot tall like Raya, is well over 7 feet tall with his arms in the air and closer to 8 feet if he can jump. The other factor is that he is a literal textbook picture of how a keeper is supposed to claim crosses. Most of them don’t have the confidence to catch it at its highest point even though the textbook tells you to do that. With his almost perfect technique and hugely impressive decision-making, I’m sure he is currently the best goalkeeper in the world when it comes to everything crosses.

Saliba and Hincapie:

I’ve seen Saliba leave and come back to his high level a few times now to know that he has this gift. Hincapie just gets better every game. Arsenal will surely activate his loan to buy clause in January. A perfect fit for a club who is serious and aggressive about defending. Hincapie was carrying a shoulder injury the entire game, also.

Calafiori:

To me he looks like a Roman soldier but he plays like a Roman emperor. Swatting people away when he’s in possession and his style is so imperious. 

Rice:

….. will win footballer of the year unless Haaland scores 30+ goals

Odegaard:

I might be about to break Martin’s heart, but then my decisions don’t go any further than my dream pillow. I’m happy to acknowledge that our conductor has returned and is starting to conduct. That his attitude and ability to glide around a football pitch is so very Arsenal. It was rather encouraging to see him running with the ball in transition, which was fairly new. I also acknowledge that his shooting has become technically better and I expect one of them to go in shortly.

O’Brien:

It’s 2029. A headline appears in the Merseyside Echo.” O’Brien admits to betting on football!” 

The article reads; “ There was a fairly uninteresting game vs Arsenal pre-Christmas 2025.” 

A local source found out that O’Brien had placed his entire weekly wage packet of £2000 on giving away a penalty in the first half during the window of time from the 24th minute until the 28th minute. O’Brien got 800–1 odds on this. O’Brien is quoted as saying ” It was simple really. I was jealous of Jack Grealish‘s pay packet, which was 700 times larger than mine and I needed to do something about it so I pushed that handsome Swedish chap in the back but the referee was having a vertical nap and he didn’t spot it. I panicked a little and realized that I needed to make it a lot more obvious, and so when the corner came in, I decided to pretend that I was an NBA player under the basket. I meant to catch the ball before I slam dunked it so it ended up looking more like the job of a blocker in volleyball, but I got and enjoyed my money for the next few years.”

VAR:

This might be the only time you ever hear me compliment VAR. The commentators in America didn’t spot it, but perhaps the VAR did. Maybe you’ve caught me in a good mood because they probably didn’t and got lucky. I thought, no in fact, I was convinced, that Saliba had given them a penalty kick. In my rulebook that I created a few years ago there is absolutely no way that this is a penalty kick but in reality those are given all the time, especially against Arsenal. Watch it in super slow motion though. Saliba actually gets to the ball first. With his knee.

NEEDS:

Eze:

I was listening to Elliot on the ArsenalVision podcast talking about Eze. It was almost scary, but hard to disagree. In such a short period of time, he has become somewhat of a luxury player. 

This Arsenal team might have ‘consistency of performance’ in their top three most important assets. Look around the team and tell me which one of the regular players isn’t consistent? I think his name is Johnny McNoone. In order for Eze to elbow Martin, Kai and possibly another out of the number 10 position is a big ask. To also prove more consistent than Trossard on the left then he is going to have to simply give more. Give more defensively, but particularly offer himself more frequently as an attacking option. 

If you watched a ‘Highlights of the Season’ video, he gives the impression that he might really catch the eye. A big moments player. Very reliably technical inside the opponents box which can never be discounted. Again, the standard is so high at Arsenal that you can’t be laid-back and chill like William Saliba is as a person and be laid back and chill on the pitch. You have to not be so passive and turn on the ‘determination button’ when the game starts.

Noni:

It’s hard to say that he should start ahead of Saka, but it is a little odd that he scored two goals in Belgium and hasn’t played a minute since.

Nwaneri:

The game on Tuesday could actually surprise us. At this point in the season, the coaches tendencies have revealed  themselves. Ethan has largely been ignored this season and needs to remind the coach. He is not only of the level, but he offers something in midfield that nobody else does, in the willingness to run at players centrally and shoot from distance.

HOPES:

We can’t control the fact that Manchester City and Aston Villa seemed to have forgotten how to draw or lose games. This will return for Aston Villa, I’m sure. Let’s hope that Manchester City remember how mediocre they were at the beginning of the season and fall into their September depression.

Meanwhile, Arsenal might just have had their slump for the season. A period where they won every game and lost one on the last kick of the game in an unfortunate manner.

Most teams in Europe would love to have this kind of ‘blip.’

FINAL THOUGHT:

Arsenal are never going to go from being so incredibly well organized to a team losing game after game. If there is a problem at Arsenal and a reason why we won’t succeed in May, it will be at the other end of the field. With the amount of control and the quality of our entire squad, we should be scoring more goals and making games easier than they are.

All that to say that after much thought and much pain in having to come around to admitting something that I don’t want to admit, I think I might have figured out the solution. It is partly an in-house change and a transfer.

I’m in the middle of writing the article, but I would really love your thoughts when it is published. 

It likely won’t happen but the pain you might feel when considering it will be something that we will have to get used to. Sometimes you have to dump your girlfriend if you want to find the wife of your dreams.

I’ll will keep it a mystery for right now 🔍 ❓

Mike McDonald